


Mip Fya'o

by Chibifukurou



Category: Avatar (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:14:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had not though he would survive.</p><p>Now that he has me must follow Eywa's will to his new path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mip Fya'o

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jeza_red](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeza_red/gifts).



> A huge thank you to Kurushi and Thinkastory for betaing this. I know it wasn't an easy story with all the Navi terms to sort out.
> 
> All remaining mistakes are of course mine.

He woke in pain. It took great effort for him to open his eyes. Even then all he could see was the sky. Gray ash filled the sky, like the ashes that rained down after the end of Kelutral. The air tasted of metal and foreign things that he had no way to name.

He remembered the bite of Tawtute1 weapons hitting him in the chest and stomach, punching through his armor and into his flesh. There had been pain like hot coals scattered over his chest.  But it had been the force that had flung him back and away.

The air had screamed around him. Banshees flew past and away. Despite their efforts, none had been able to grab him in their talons.

He concentrated on trying to remember what happened after that. He should not have survived the fall. It was too far and his body was already damaged from the fight with the Tawtutes.

His lips curled back in a growl as the memory of the Tawtutes' plan filtered through the fog of pain.

Eywa. They were going to kill her. He clenched his hands and forced himself up. He had to help stop the Tawtutes.

Barely a few hand-widths from the ground, he was forced to lay his head back down. His vision tunneled and buckled. The trees wavered and turned the color of Eywa's soul. So pure and blue that it left haloes when his eyes flutter closed.

It was only after he calmed his breath and reached out with his other senses that he realizes that he was not lying on the ground. It was  too soft and smooth.

He reached out a long arm to feel the thing he was resting against. Hairs prickled roughly against his fingertips, a familiar sensation, after years of riding ikran. He forced his eyes open and turned his head slowly until he could stare into the face of his banshee. He rubbed a careful hand over its nose as he has done since the first day it had chosen him. A last farewell to a faithful partner.

There was little point in jumping up and going after the Tawtutes now. He would have no way to reach them, save to walk, and the journey was hard. The area that surrounded the well of souls was some of the rockiest in his clan's territory.

Moving like a koaktan2 he was able to leaver himself up, to crawl towards the surrounding woods. His leg felt as though it was consumed with fire. Reypay3 dripped from the wounds on his chest. He didn't look at his leg to see why it hurts worse than his chest.

He long ago learned the lesson of not looking at something you were not yet ready to contemplate. Suspecting that his leg was shattered was different than looking down to see the damage.

So he continued to crawl, balancing as much of his weight as he could on his good leg and his arms.

It still caused fire to race though his chest.

There was a thicket that he had not been able to see from his resting place. It was thankfully filled with healing plants and the wide leafed pfom plants that were good for use as bandages.

He pressed his back against the thickest part of a tree's trunk. It was rough against his back, causing new aches to make themselves known. It should not have surprised him that it was damaged. He must have landed with great force, even with his partner's body to break his fall.

He forced his mind back onto the task that was to come. The world was still a wavering thing. Shifting and changing whenever his eyes wavered, as though everything that surrounds him was but a reflection in a pool of water.

He pushed such thoughts away. His attention turning to his leg. It was much as he thought. The foot points in the opposite direction from his knee and there was a deep gaping mouth of a wound high up on his thigh. Even where there was no blood, the flesh did not look right. It was flattened and swollen by turns.

Worse than he had imagined, it made his stomach roil. It was a good thing that he had not fallen prey to the urge to look at it.

For he had still held hope that he could straighten it and wrap it tightly enough in bandages that he would be able to hobble to the ayVitrayä Ramunong so that he could at least bear witness to what had become of his people.

He did not need a healers training to know that even if he bound the leg it will do little good. He could keep the sickness from the wounds with poultice and bandages, but he could not knit the bones together into a solid enough foundation that he will be able to walk upon it. Not even with the help of branches to lend it strength.

He could leave the wounds un-treated. Lay here and give his soul back to Eywa, never having to know if his saoia have died in their fight to drive the Tawtutes from their lands.

It was not a warrior's death, but perhaps it was simply the loss of Eywa that has allowed him to survive a fall that should have left him dead.

Still the thought niggled like an eltungawng4. What if Eywa yet lived and it was her divine choice that he remained alive? What if she still has a calling, a place for him even now after Neytiri has chosen a new Eytukan? To reject her will because he did not understand it, would be blasphemy. So he would have to continue on, despite his pain.

He trained to be Eytukan for years before he lost his place. He was strong. He would do whatever it took to survive until Eywa took him to his rest.

# # #

It took a week to make it back to ayVitrayä Ramunong. He'd laid down many a night on the rough forest floor not knowing if he would survive until the next dawn.

Yet, every day he rose with the sun and began his journey again. No predators followed his steps, and there was food and medicine whenever he had need for it.

A sign of Eywa's regard, and his continued usefulness to her.

Still, by the morning he stumbled into his people's camp, he had resorted to stuffing the dressings on his leg with numb weed, far more than was safe to use.

The forest had become a strange and wavering thing, with the weed pouring though his veins, but it eased his fever and allowed him to ignore the pain caused whenever he was forced to drag his leg one more step.

His hands bled, the skin breaking open under the pressure of levering himself forward, without the use of his leg.

All of that pain fell away from his awareness, when he rounded the final outcropping of rock and saw his people spred out before him. They were still living in a rough camp of hide tents and fires, but they were here and he could see Eywa's grove in the distance.

Relief left him giddy and weak. Before he could recover, his hands loosened their grasp on his walking staff and he fell. His last moments of awareness were filled with cries of joy and the sound of pounding feet.

# #  #

He woke inside a tent. The hide roof was out of focus due to the smoke that filled the darkened space. It smelled of astringents and numb weed.

He must have been even weaker than he had thought, if they had resorted to the burning herbs, always so hard to control outside the safety of Kelutral 's healing wing.

Light flooded the space for a moment, as the tent flap was lifted. There was the sound of soft footsteps and then the Tsahik was leaning over him so that he could look into her eyes, without moving. "You were close to being with Eywa when the scouts found you. You should not have pushed yourself so hard."

"My ikran was lost in the battle. I had no other way to reach you."

"You could have taken greater care to rest, or waited for the scouts to find you while before risking the climb to reach our camp."

"I could not."

"You feared for us, did you not?"

"The sky people were stronger than I had expected. I did not know if Eywa still stood."

She sighed. He could hear the soft shuffle of feet as she moved about the tent for a moment, before there was the soft creak of a reed chair to his right.

Turning his head, he was able to see her, though not as clearly as when she had leaned over him. "I am sorry for my lack of faith," he said

The corner of her mouth rose slightly, though her eyes remained distant, as though to look through the tent's walls towards where Eywa waited. "It is only to be expected. You are young yet, and a tsamsiyu5. Those that fight rarely have the patience to accept that which cannot be changed. It is in their nature to always believe that there is a way to solve the problems of this world."

He could no more disagree with that statement, then he could argue with his title of warrior. "What happened to the sky people?"

"Eywa stepped in on our behalf, and drove them from the planet. Only those she accepted remain."

"Jake Sully?" He asked. Even though he knew the likely answer.

"He is Toruk Makto"

Which was answer enough.

# # #

It was no secret between the Tsahik and him, that his leg grew no stronger. It healed, the wounds knit and the bone becomes whole, but it could not hold his weight. Not even for the short walk between his tent and the necessary.

Two weeks after he returned to camp, she brought him a walking staff. It took him a moment to realize that beneath the carvings and carefully wrapped leather, lay the same staff that helped him to return. It was a fitting gift.

Despite this, it felt like he was admitting defeat the moment he stepped outside of the tent, dressed in his warrior's garb and resting most of his weight on the staff.

# # #

Of all the tribe members it was remarkably Jake Sully who treated him no differently, despite the fact that it was now Tsu'Tey who was unworthy of being called a warrior.

Neytiri tried, but she could not look him in the eye. Her gaze always fell to the staff or his leg, which he had taken to wrapping in leather strips, for what little stability they could lend him.

Jake Sully still pushed him though, never flinching away from his gaze or looking overlong at his leg. Despite the casual manner in which he appeared to treat the injury, Tsu'Tey could not point to a single instance in which Jake Sully had pushed him farther than he could handle.

It was as though, even now, Jake Sully saw them as equals.

Even stranger, he found himself agreeing with that belief, after he had tried so hard to prove himself better than the Tawtute.

It felt as though, with Jake Sully's help, he would finally be able to discover the new path Eywa had chosen for him.

[NAVI Dictionary](http://eanaeltu.learnnavi.org/dicts/NaviDictionary.pdf)

Tawtute: sky-people

Koaktan: old man

Reypay: Lifewater/Blood

Eltungawng: brainworm

Tsamsiyu: warrior

Ikran: Banshee


End file.
